One of the sticking points is whether efforts under the Kyoto Protocol will count towards Paris. Essentially, countries can’t agree on how they’ll count their greenhouse gas emissions, or their efforts to reduce them.

Mr Shaw told reporters this morning these were technical matters negotiators had been grappling with for three years. “Frankly, they should’ve gotten past that kind of detail before all the ministers showed up for the final three days,” he said.

Broadly speaking, Mr Shaw said a big frustration for him was the differences in countries’ commitments to fighting the effects of climate change.

“On one side you’ve got countries who are saying that they want a set of rules that are quite permissive and lets them do things, because they’re worried about the potential impact on their Gross Domestic Product.

“On the other hand, you’ve got a group of countries who are saying ‘this is an existential question for us, and our very survival as a culture and as a people is at stake’.”

That’s a big statement. perhaps Shaw is right, or maybe he just believes that everyone has to change to his way of thinking and living or they are doomed. It’s a bit like a religious thing – if you don’t believe in Green heaven you will go to hell.

OURS IS NOT JUST A RAPE CULTURE: it’s a Kill Culture, a Rip-off Culture and a Lie Culture as well. But, rather than attempting to reconcile ourselves to living in a multiplicity of malign cultures, it is probably more helpful to think of ourselves as inhabiting a single Exploitative Culture. One in which human-beings are consistently treated as means to another’s end – not as ends in themselves.

Cultures are far more complex than that. Labelling a whole society with negative culture tags is generally counter productive to sensible and reasoned discussion.

The trick to running a successful Exploitative Culture, therefore, lies in defining who is – and who is not – a member of it. Or, to put it another way: who is included in the idea of “Us”, and who belongs with “Them”.

Generally speaking the smaller the “Us”, the greater the power. If you’re a member of the “One Percent”, for example, it not only means that you are obscenely wealthy and powerful, but also that 99 percent of your fellow human-beings are, in one way or another, exploitable.

This sort of generalisation doesn’t help either. Yes, richer people are possibly more likely to exploit others (but are by no means the only ones who do that). But richer people are also more likely to contribute donations, and larger donations, to good causes.

Exploitation is always and everywhere associated with actual physical violence, or the threat of it. Without violence people simply would not consent to being treated as the means to someone else’s ends – they would rebel.

I don’t agree with this. Threat of violence is far from the only thing necessary for exploitation.

Exploitative Culture (which is to say all culture) may thus be further defined as the organisation of, and the devising of justifications for, purposive social violence.

We thus return to “Us” and “Them”: which may now be thought of, respectively, as those who must be protected from the imposition of purposive violence; and those upon whom such violence may be inflicted with impunity.

Does Trotter think that ‘the one percent’ are the only ones who threaten or use violence?

Consider the current controversy surrounding “Operation Burnham” the botched, or exemplary (depending on whether you believe journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, or the Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force, Lt-General Tim Keating) attack on settlements in the Tirgiran Valley in Northern Afghanistan.

What happened in the Tirgiran Valley could not have happened if its inhabitants were regarded by the New Zealand soldiers taking part in the operation as members of “Us”.

Wars tend to have an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. The SAS soldiers were acting on behalf of the Afghan Government which was acting on behalf of more than 1% of the population.

The whole purpose of their book, Hit & Run, is to make the reader see the victims of Operation Burnham as people like themselves: hard-working farmers; a trainee schoolteacher home for the holidays; parents and grandparents; a three-year-old girl called Fatima. And the more successful the authors are at transforming “Them” into “Us”, the more outrageous Operation Burnham seems to the New Zealand public.

I don’t think the whole purpose of ‘Hit & Run’ was to support Trotter’s theories on ‘us & them’.

Trotter seems to have decided that the Hager & Stephenson book is 100% correct and that the victims of the attack were as claimed by some and were all innocent people just like ‘us’.

He ignores the fact that people from that area are also alleged to have been involved in violent attacks on other people in Afghanistan, rebelling against their government and supporting an extremely repressive Taliban.

For ordinary men to accept their subordination to stronger, richer and more powerful men, Exploitative Culture supplies them with their own inexhaustible supply of subordinates – women and children. And since there can be no exploitation – no power – without violence, the maintenance of this primal dichotomy is of necessity achieved through the unremitting application of physical and emotional coercion. Domestic violence, rape, child abuse: these are not just the products of the masculine/feminine dichotomy, they are also the most tragic expression of the “Us” and “Them” divide.

The non-consensual penetration of a young woman at a party; the invasion of a distant river valley by airborne special forces; both are symptoms of the same dreadful disease.

There are certainly strong links between war and violence (and rape has often been a weapon used in wars) and domestic violence and sexual assaults.

But I think it’s all a lot more complex than Trotter suggests. For a start the perpetrators of domestic violence are far from confined to some financial 1%.

Pizza Bella was born last year when he opened in George St, after buying a failed pizza business having spied a potential business opportunity.

He later bought another pizza shop in Alexandra, rebranding it also as Pizza Bella, and recently opened in Gordon Rd, Mosgiel.

Mr Arora only spoke limited English when he arrived in New Zealand from India as a teenager to study business management.

Now happily settled in Dunedin, he has adopted a new slogan for Pizza Bella — Born in Otago — a reflection of how Otago people had supported him, he said.

It’s not uncommon for ethnic styled restaurants and food outlets to be owned and managed and staffed by people of various backgrounds.

Flat breads covered with stuff date back a long time. Bread covered with oils, herbs and cheese were eaten in ancient Greece.

Modern pizza is thought to have evolved out of dishes in Naples a few hundred years ago. Italians took these recipes to the US where they gradually became popular, especially with the avalanche of fast food outlets and franchises.

I first encountered pizza in the seventies in Auckland at Pizza Hut – on my first visit I ordered a steak, something I was more familiar with.

Now you can get pizza with a wide variety of ethnic style toppings. Including Indian.

Dunedin is known for it’s Scottish heritage (although in reality that’s only a small part of the ethnic mix here). I haven’t seen any haggis pizza here yet, but it’s been done – in London.

The statements of Stanford student athlete and rapist Brock Turner’s family and friends point to the poisoned atmosphere which helps prominent men believe they are entitled to rape, says Madeleine Holden. Trigger warning: this opinion piece addresses rape and sexual violence.

On January 17, 2015, Stanford student athlete Brock Turner raped an unconscious women behind a dumpster. In March this year, judge Aaron Persky handed down a six month sentence to Turner despite the maximum sentence of 14 years for three counts of sexual assault, saying that he thought “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him… I think he will not be a danger to others.” This, in itself, isn’t news: rapists avoiding jail time for their crimes is nothing new, and it’s not unusual for young, white male athletes from prestigious universities to be treated leniently by their schools and the legal system.

Holden shows what initiated widespread interest in the case, the court statement of the victim, and then goes on to detail what sparked a furore.

In the face of widespread backlash about his sentence, Turner’s father issued a statement defending his son, arguing his life will be “deeply altered” by the court’s verdict and that “He will never be his happy-go-lucky self with that easygoing personality and welcoming smile.” Turner’s father went on to describe the worry, anxiety, fear and depression his son now faces, before stating that “His life will never be the one that he dreamt about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”

20 minutes of action. That’s how Brock Turner’s father described his son raping an unconscious young woman behind a dumpster. Action. As though it was harmless sexual fun – the kind young men are wont to seek out – and only 20 minutes of it, as if his son was cheated by having to face all these pesky consequences for a mere blip of a good time. That “good time,” of course, robbed Turner’s victim of her dignity and wellbeing and permanently altered the course of her life, too. The only difference is she had no say in it.

Mr Turner went on to say that his son should not be sent to jail because of his lack of prior offending, and also because “he has never been violent to anyone, including his actions on the night of January 17, 2015.”

Mr Turner’s comment here portrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rape. Rape is always violent, and it is always a violation. Turner’s victim was left with bruises inside her vagina and scratches and lacerations on her skin. Turner also left her with lasting feelings of despair, difficulty with trust, an inability to eat or sleep, depression, isolation, difficulty working, and continuing fear. Turner’s “actions” on the night of January 17, 2015 were violent, because that night, he raped someone. Rape is always violent.

Incredibly, Mr Turner went on to say that his son could become a role model for young people.

“Brock can do so many positive things as a contributor to society and is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity,” he wrote. “By having people like Brock educate others on college campuses is how society can begin to break the cycle of binge drinking and its unfortunate results.”

It’s disheartening, to say the least, that Mr Turner thinks the problem here is alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity, neither of which are the same thing as rape. The mention of drinking is a convenient scapegoat for Turner and his father, because they can point the finger at the victim, who was drinking – the implication being that she was partially to blame for her predicament, which she wasn’t. But the mention of “sexual promiscuity” is startling.

And it gets worse:

In case you think Turner’s father was a rogue influence in his life, his friend has come forward to blame the conviction on political correctness, and, bafflingly, said that “rape on campus isn’t always because people are rapists.”

“This is completely different from a woman getting kidnapped and raped as she is walking to her car in a parking lot,” she said. “That is a rapist. These are not rapists. These are idiot boys and girls having too much to drink and not being aware of their surroundings and having clouded judgement.”

Idiot boys, and girls. The implication is clear: idiots, these girls, for getting themselves raped because they drank too much; not like real victims, who are simply walking to their cars alone at night, before they’re whisked away by real rapists. Again, this statement betrays a severe misunderstanding of what rape is. Most survivors of rape are raped by people they know. Turner’s friend manages to stuff two damaging rape myths into one statement: the idea that women and girls contribute to their own rapes by drinking, and that rape that happens on college campuses or between acquaintances isn’t real, like stranger rape is.

This all illustrates a much wider problem.

Mr Turner believes disturbing things about rape, “promiscuity”, drinking and college culture. At the age of 19, his son raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. It is, of course, impossible to know why exactly Brock Turner became a rapist, but one thing is for sure: the attitudes held by his father – and many, many other people – about rape aren’t harmless or isolated; they directly feed into how young men decide to treat women.

If you’re not convinced, there’s mounting evidence. A survey of 379 college-aged men revealed that, of the athletes surveyed, more than half reported coercing a partner into sex. Furthermore, those who reported coercing partners into sex – that is, raping them – were more likely to believe in rape myths (“If a woman doesn’t fight back, it isn’t rape,” for example) and hold traditional views of gender roles such as “Women should worry less about their rights and more about becoming good wives and mothers.” In short, believing common, dangerous ideas about rape and women’s roles is more likely to mean that you are a rapist.

I don’t think that most men are rapists. Some men, are, and because some of them are recidivist rapists it can appear as if there are many male rapists.

Holden illustrates more alarming public attitudes of some males and sex, including this from “one of hip hop’s most prolific stylists” (who faces multiple accusations of rape):

That’s a seriously sick attitude, on public display.

Holden concludes:

You don’t need to be a father to help raise a rapist. You only need to be an active participant in a culture that already treats rape alarmingly lightly. Rapists are around us, and they listen to jokes about rape and rape myths – ideas that women can dress or behave in ways that invite rape, that if they don’t fight and scream they must have “liked it”, that if they were drunk then they got what was coming to them – and they are fortified by them.

Real rapists are absorbing our cultural attitudes about rape, and then they are raping actual women. It’s not an academic exercise, and we have enough evidence to show that our dialogue around rape isn’t harmless or separate from the real world in which rape takes place. Perpetuating rape myths contributes towards a culture in which rape happens often and is punished little; a culture that believes, on some level, that men are bound to rape and women invite rape by acting in certain ways.

That is the real problem.

Now I happen think that a conviction and a 6 month prison sentence (out in 3) will have a major impact on Brock Turner. But relative to the offence it is a lenient sentence.

His ’20 minutes of action’ has had a profoundly damaging effect on the whole life of a woman.

At least his case has highlighted a serious issue. If a few men (‘man’ may not be a suitable description for people who think it’s ok to have sex with an unconscious stranger) like Turner get disproportionately punished (in comparison to past educated white offenders) then so be it.

This was a very sleazy sexual attack that deserves condemnation publicly and by the court.

And the only way of making it clear that the attitudes that contribute to this sort of offending have to change is by punishing offenders in a way that change the entrenched attitudes of people like Turner’s father and friend, and many other men and women

Including in New Zealand, where many attitudes to women and to sex and to rape are far appropriate.

I’m aware that some men get annoyed or offended by rape culture being mentioned. Many men are not rapists, many men do not promote cultures that excuse and in some ways encourage sexual assaults and inappropriate sexual attitudes and behaviours.

But this is one issue where remaining innocent silent is not enough. Good people, good men, should speak up more to make it clear to those who abuse and sexually assault and rape women – and men – that it is abhorrent behaviour that a modern society should not tolerate.

Some people say they want everyone who migrates to New Zealand to accept and follow our ‘culture’. They don’t explain exactly what New Zealand culture is.

Maori culture is a significant part, but even that varies in different parts of the country, and it has blended significantly with other cultures. Which other cultures? From the 2013 census New Zealand residents identified with these ethnicities:

European 74%

Maori 14.9%

Asian 11.8%

Pacific 7.4%

Middle Eastern/Latin American/African 1.2%

I guess I’m included in ‘European’ but I don’t see myself as European, I see myself as a New Zealander with little empathy for Europe.

European and Asian cover a wide range of ethnicities. And many people identified with multiple ethnicities, for example 53.5% of Maori identified with two or more ethnic groups.

Many of us have ancestral links with Great Britain, but there’s a wide range of cultures there. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and still a part of Ireland, but within each of those there is a huge cultural mix.

The British Isles have been a melting pot of cultures for millenia. Some of the major inputs have been Celtic, Roman, Viking, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Norman, with a lot of intermixing with neighbouring countries such as France, Holland, Spain. There have been significant influxes of immigrants at various times from around Europe, and more recently from the Caribbean and Asia.

And many of these cultures end up in New Zealand, melding European with Pacific.

So when people claim some sort of magic culture that everyone should embrace I have no idea what they mean.

Some people seem to be afraid of diversity. Others, like me, like it and embrace it.

Last night someone linked to this image:

Have a look at the ethnic mix in many cities in New Zealand and you will see a wide diversity, different to this picture but just as varied.

I enjoy mixing with other cultures.

At various times I have had a go at learning a number of languages – French, Esperanto, Italian, German and Spanish. I know bits of them, and I know bits of Maori and other Pacific languages but am not fluent in any other than English. Or I should say the particular flavour of English many of us use in New Zealand.

I enjoy eating a wide variety of cuisine from around the world.

There are some people who shun diversity in food and prefer Macdonalds when travelling – but I didn’t experience hamburgers until some time through my childhood and Macs are hardly a symbol of Kiwi or European culture.

While some seem to yearn for a Kiwi monoculture the reality is that diversity rules here, and immigration will ensure that our cultural mix keeps changing and evolving.

And it’s worth remembering that cultural diversity leads to genetic diversity, which is essential for a healthy human race.

The first is that we should stop focusing on “alcohol-fuelled violence” and address what she calls cultural reinforcers of violence, such as aggressive masculinity.

A cultural shift can be achieved, she says, by recognising that individuals are in control of their own behaviour and should face consequences, such as social stigma and heavy penalties, for transgressions.

Fox also suggests we should de-emphasise consumption of alcohol for its own sake and refocus on entertainment and group conviviality. She urges better drinking environments, with higher ratios of females (both staff and patrons), a wider range of ages (violence is less likely in mixed-age groups) and a clear message that bad behaviour will not be tolerated. She was alarmed at the number of bars and clubs in New Zealand and Australia that served people who were clearly drunk.

She is also an advocate of consistent, visible policing (she found that police are more effective on foot than in patrol cars) and clear penalties for bad behaviour.

In the New South Wales city of Newcastle, Fox notes, police show little tolerance for bad behaviour and young people are well aware that infringements, such as sexual harassment or urinating in public, will earn them a heavy and immediate fine.

Safe, well-managed 24-hour food outlets are important too, she says, as is adequate transport out of the entertainment districts of large cities.

Fox suggests that even language can be used to change harmful concepts of masculinity and to indicate social disapproval of violent behaviour. In Australia the term “king hit”, meaning a powerful blow delivered without warning, has been rebranded in the media as the “coward’s punch” following a series of highly publicised king hit-related deaths and injuries. The long-term effectiveness of this change in terminology has yet to be measured but Fox calls it a step in the right direction.

She is especially emphatic about the need for better alcohol education. Young New Zealanders and Australians appear to know very little of the basic facts about alcohol, she says. Effective programmes should offer a balanced portrayal of both the negative and positive aspects of consumption and provide unbiased information about alcohol’s real effects.

Scare tactics don’t work and can even be counter-productive, she insists. “The element of risk is, for many young people, an added attraction to drug-taking or binge drinking.”

Establishing a culture that uses peer pressure to oppose and condemn all violence including attempts to use alcohol as an excuse for thuggish behaviour can be done.

We managed to change the New Zealand culture on drink driving where it is now seen as unacceptable by most people and frowned on socially, because it was a serious risk to the safety of innocent people.

Person perpetrated violence via fists and boots isn’t much different to person perpetrated violence via vehicle, except that those who use fists and boots do so very deliberately. We should be more appalled and more determined to change our culture around alcohol and violence.

Most of us already abhor violence in most situations. But we can do more to speak up against it to make it clear that whether using alcohol as an excuse or not thuggery is socially unacceptable in New Zealand.

There’s a common mistake made about New Zealand culture in relation to immigration – that immigrants should “accept our culture” or “go back home”.

Two mistakes actually – some immigrants don’t have homes to go back to, or don’t have safe homes to go back to.

But some seem to think that their culture represents New Zealand culture and everyone should do and be the same.That’s nonsense. There are a wide range of cultures co-existing and intermingling in New Zealand and there always have been.

Now for the record, I wouldn’t have spoken as Ron Mark did. I can see how such a statement could easily be misconstrued and has the real potential to make members of migrant communities who *have* chosen to make New Zealand their home – and work for the betterment thereof – feel unwelcome.

But he also defended Mark and supported NZ First’s divisive tactics.

In any case, while I might disagree with the wording used in the bridging phrase, I can nevertheless easily see why Ron would have cited a list of comparable conditions (in this case, Korean national holidays) designed to demonstrate that Lee’s “as a migrant” assertions about New Zealand’s status relative to other countries were spurious.

The “go back to Korea” line was a poor choice of set-up for this, and there are certainly other ways Ron could have lead into talking about that part of Lee’s speech … but I make no apology for New Zealand First harbouring legitimate concerns as to how this legislation might affect and undermine the rights and protections of the ordinary Kiwi worker.

I agree with the writer and with Ron Mark. The truth of the matter is that NZ is our home and if someone visits and doesn’t like the way we do things, then they need to accept our culture or go live somewhere else that operates to their satisfaction. I especially feel this to be the case with people whose religion requires them to be always masked in public.

I don’t recall seeing any religious masking. The garb of nuns or Brethren or Muslims is not my thing but it’s their choice (hopefully) what they wear.

I see what I think are far worse fully clothed sights from youth ‘fashion’ statements. I find gang regalia more distasteful than religious clothing. I’d rather see many of the the overuse of tattoos covered up and face piercings look much worse to me than a scarfed head.

This is NOT part of our much more open culture and those people need to accept being un-masked is how we are, or GO and LIVE WHERE THAT SORT OF BEHAVIOR IS THE NORM. That’s not to judge it wrong but it is an example of such a different culture and one which essentially exists in conflict with ours. Would the NZ public find it acceptable if immigrants came from a culture where they wore NO clothes? ‘Go back where you came from’ would be a much more common demand. ‘When in Rome …..”

Is Pietrad suggesting that anyone not complying with the Kiwi cuklture of a black singlet, shorts and gumboots should ‘Go back where you came from’?

People stating that people who don’t fit in with “our culture” shoukld bugger off never seem to say what specific Kiwi culture they want everyone here to comply with. There’s a vast array of cultures on display around New Zealand.

It would be awful of everyone was a clone of Pietron or Ron Mark.

I think people like this have as much right to choose their attire in New Zealand as I do:

I have worked on construction sites where the usual minimum wage day labourer sorts brag about the number of females they got pregnant. One had 4 kids to 3 females and was very proud of that.

Thats a lot of low quality sperm getting sprayed everywhere and fertilising equally low quality eggs and its the tax payer that will be paying over and over for it as the low IQ progeny work their way through the welfare, education and justice system.

It has to stop.

For every women (or girl) who has a baby who is born into an at risk family/lack of family situation there is also a father (I doubt that many of these kids are the result of artificial insemination or immaculate conception).

It’s known that it’s common in the problem demographics for struggling or incompetent mothers to have multiple fathers of their children.

Not all multiple father families are a problem, far from it.

But irresponsible father families – or no responsibility father families – are a major part of the problem, from fuck and run fathers to those who can’t cope and move on.

Why is it common for males to actively have sex knowing it may result on offspring that they have little or no intention of taking any financial or parenting responsibility for?

Like drink driving forty years ago it is probably seen as a joke by some, and an achievement by others.

But the victims are many, and they include the mothers who get pressured or conned into having unprotected sex, but most importantly the victims are the many kids born into hopeless situations because they have hopeless fathers.

This is a substantial systemic male problem.

So this needs male leadership. Not the easy male leadership in politics, business and sport.

It’s very difficult leadership that’s required, both because it’s a difficult issue, and because males seem to have difficulty in taking joint responsibility for male problems.

Many males are either a part of or do nothing about masculine culture irresponsibility when it comes to contraception and fatherhood.

How about it male political leaders? Who is willing to to stand up and confront the fuck and run father mentality?